Keeping Tabs
by ookami-san
Summary: Tony was often an obsessed man.


**This story is meant to be a companion to Liar, Liar and a part of the Sirens Song series. It is not necessary to read Liar, Liar for this, nor is it necessary to read this after Liar, Liar. It is simply complementary and meant to be a deeper look into Tony's character, motivations, and the like.**

**Beta'd by: Mazelle Morelle**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing and turn no profits from this venture. **

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Tony loved Pepper more than anyone else in his life. If you were to ask him of what his blood consisted of, he would say 40% Pepper, 40% alcohol, and 20% blood cells. She fit snugly into his life in a way few others could, and even less would be willing to. At one point he probably would have said Obadiah had a percentage there too, but now Obadiah joined his father as a brackish sludge that waited to poison him until he was nothing but the daze of alcohol and his broken promises to Pepper.

Pepper was what kept him from succumbing to the maelstrom of chaos in his life. She was strong and beautiful and clever, and even if she couldn't keep up with him in the lab, she could keep up with him as a person. More than that, she wanted to, and that was more than he could say for 99.99% of the rest of the world. Yes, Tony Stark most definitely loved Pepper Potts.

One of her best qualities was that she never expected more of him than he could give. Even when they had started this odd dance called dating she hadn't expected him to be monogamous. Well, that wasn't entirely true. She had assumed that the relationship would progress into monogamy, but she was a wise woman and she knew he wouldn't be able to keep to that for long. One night she had cornered him after kicking another reporter out of the house that morning, all red hair and hour glass figure brimming with that special brand of Pepper Potts Rage and before she'd even gotten out so much as, 'Tony,' all of that anger had flooded out of her like a dam breaking open.

Tony had gotten worried at that point, already headed for a glass of scotch so he could drown out the failure of pushing away the best thing to have happened to him in his life. Surely, she had finally given up on him.

That wasn't what had happened though. He'd made to move to get his elixir of the night when she'd caught his eyes with an intensity he didn't think he'd ever seen from her before. He was trapped, mesmerized by her gaze, unable to reach out for his scotch a mere few inches away on the lab table.

She lifted her hand to caress his face and gave him an odd smile he couldn't quite place. It wasn't sad, or angry, or even disappointed... But it wasn't happy either.

"I get it now, Tony." She whispered, finally breaking eye contact to sweep her eyes over the glowing reactor in his chest. Her hand trailed down from his cheek until it came to rest over the reactor and he could not keep himself from shivering.

"I get it. You're heart is too big for just one person. I'm..." She paused as though to validate her next words.

"I'm okay with that."

And then her lips had been on his lips, and her hands had begun to find all of his intimate spots, and he couldn't even protest and tell her that he didn't have a heart. He'd never had a heart and for as much as she said it it was the one way in which Pepper had never understood him. Instead her blouse was coming undone, and he was making noises only Pepper knew how to pull from him and suddenly it was morning and the lab was a mess of clothes and fluids and sunlight and he'd forgotten to tell her she was wrong, that he couldn't be faithful not because he had too much to give, but because he didn't have anything worth giving.

They talked about an open relationship a few days later when Pepper had gotten back from an expo in Ohio, and that had been the end of it. He'd never told her she was wrong, and she never told him his heart was too big again. So, in reality, their relationship hadn't honestly changed much. His life hadn't really changed, either, other than that now when she came and turned off his music she'd kiss him to shut him up, or she'd bring him food and they'd spend the rest of the night working on chemistry instead of plans for Stark Tower or new suit modifications.

Then, the Avengers- Loki- had happened, and Tony Stark, genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, had thought he was going to die to save everyone else. He told himself even then that it wasn't because he'd had a heart, but because he'd known that maybe he was a genius but the world needed the other Avengers more than it needed him. The world needed Pepper Pots, and Rhody. What the world could survive without was Tony Stark.

Somehow, though, he came out alive, with five new friends in his life. Five new people he gave a damn about who actually gave a damn about him, too. He was breaking his own personal records. He thought, maybe he'd change. Or that Pepper would change. That she wouldn't be able to handle any more world-saving dangerous shit than she had before, or that he'd get bored, or that he'd finally settle down and give her everything she needed and deserved.

It never happened like that. Somehow life picked right back up, they were still in an open relationship, and she was still the blood in his veins. He still loved her more than anything, and she still put up with all of his bullshit.

And Pepper definitely put up with a lot of it, from Tony. There wasn't a soul in the world who could or would disagree with that fact. Beyond cleaning up his messes, making sure he functioned somewhat properly, making sure he didn't drown himself in alcohol completely, and making sure he slept and ate and about a million other things Pepper outwardly did for Tony, she also put up with his obsessions.

She'd heard somewhere that geniuses were prone to bouts of obsession. They were 'possessed souls' as a friend had put it to her, and with that Pepper had to agree. Tony had been obsessed with girls, he'd been obsessed with cars, with artificial intelligence, with, for a brief period, the presence of fibonacci numbers in, well, everything. Tony's obsessions were as fluid as he was, constantly ebbing and flowing, intermingling with each other. It was impossible to tell what held his fancy at any given moment because by the time you had asked he could have moved on to something else and before you could catch up he was back to the thing he had started at.

He'd always flowed through obsessions, never truly fixating on one thing for longer than a few months, but that had changed after Obadiah. He'd always had a compulsive need to know as much information about any given person as one could possibly buy, but his attentions had waxed and waned, sometimes inspired by a particularly interesting Finnish model, or sometimes completely forgotten before they really began. After Obadiah's betrayal, Tony's obsession with knowing everything about everyone had taken up a permanent position.

People would probably find Tony Stark's personal server files horrifying with the sheer amount of information. He'd had Jarvis run background checks on every single person that entered the tower, and for those whom he interacted with even more he'd bought the most knowledge money could buy on a person. For some, and while she wasn't supposed to know this, _but of course Pepper knew this_, Tony had people in Natasha's line of work as retainers to dig out even more. Fury's folder was possibly the largest one, and had only grown after Tony had cracked SHIELD's system.

Tony of course didn't have time to read all of this, so he had Jarvis make the sparknotes of people's lives for Tony to brush over in his (overabundant) spare time. When Loki had arrived back in New York, 6 months after his initial midgardian debut, come to carve out a mostly-mortal life amongst the New Yorkers he'd tried to subjugate, Tony had spent a good two days reading through Loki's file like everything he held dear was dependant on him knowing everything possible about the god of mischief.

Tony had read hours upon hours, stopping only to drink or eat when Pepper stopped by. The thing was, Pepper was sure Loki's file was not that big. It certainly wasn't tiny, but compared to Fury's it was a walk in the park to read. Pepper was convinced that Tony was re-reading things, despite his rare need to, because he was trying to figure the god out.

It was one of the things Pepper loved about Tony. He could read people like they were children's stories, he could figure you out before you had even said 'hi.' And when he couldn't get a read on you he'd push your buttons until he had.

Loki seemed to be someone Tony simply couldn't get the proper hold on. He could read him well enough- daddy issues, family issues, entitled god- simple stuff, really, but Tony wanted to know more. Mythology and second-hand accounts did not make up the entirety of who and what Loki truly was.

Pepper had been lounging about the tower, reading a trashy romance novel and drinking a Pinot Noir that was more expensive than the chair she was sitting on when Tony had finally emerged from his self-imposed lab exile and looked at her as though he held the key to a very expensive new car.

She should have known then that this was going to be trouble, but instead they'd eaten and then defiled the kitchen counter, and when she woke up the next morning he was already back in his lab working on a new project with his usual gusto. Everything seemed to be returning to normal- or as normal as anything was with Tony.

She really should have seen it coming then.

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**Whoop whoop, done with another bit of Sirens Song. Hopefully this can be read as a stand-alone look into Tony & Pepper's relationship and Tony's obsessive need to keep his eye on everyone around him. This one wasn't inspired by any particular song in name, but rather just an unimaginative title that more or less so stuck around from the plot list. It was supposed to get a cooler name but**

**it didn't. Oh well. Please read and review- it makes me feel good and keeps me motivated to write. I love crit and I love love. :) **

**Please read this at AO3 where it's going to both update faster and be set up much better.**

** /works/465289**


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